Segway boss dies riding Segway

The boss of Segway has died after a freak accident that saw him ride one of his machines off a cliff.

Jimi Heselden was riding a more rugged country version of the electric two-wheeler around his North Yorkshire estate yesterday when he lost control, falling over a cliff and into the River Wharfe below.

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said today: "Police were called at 11.40am yesterday to reports of a man in the River Wharfe, apparently having fallen from the cliffs above.

"A Segway-style vehicle was recovered. He was pronounced dead at the scene. At this time we do not believe the death to be suspicious."

Heselden acquired Segway last year made his money from defence contracts and was worth £166 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

[quote Lee23404]I know I shouldn't but ..[/quote]He bought the company after the invention was well into production. Singer of Singer sewing machines bought a small car company, gave it his name, and then watched one of his cars take his family and careen into a lake on his estate and drown them. Bugatti lost his gifted brother to a car accident .. The auto business is full of such irony.

First time I saw these was in Atlanta, Georgia a few years ago. Ridden by corpulent cops, obviously too overweight to chase anyone on foot and their beat being too much of a strain.

The Security dept. at one of our US campuses also had one, until some idiot from facilities, reckoning he was a bit of a whizz on them, took it for a spin in the car park and fell off, injuring his arm. It was then consigned to a store room having been deemed a health and safety risk!

It's ironic, because the invention which made him a multi-millionaire (a collapsible barrier), has saved many lives in the middle east, and he has given very generously to charity, including £1.5 Million recently for Help for Heroes. RIP Jimi. You were one in a million.

Jim Heselden went down the pit at 15. After the miners' strike, he set up with a friend manufacturing portable wire cages initially used in civil engineering, later picked up by the defence industry for use as blast walls, protecting soldiers and civilians from bombs, suicide bombers etc and replacing the role of sand bags. He was also one of this country's most generous philanthropists, having donated millions of pounds of his own money to worthy causes.